What's On My Mind (and My Reading List) - April 2026

A Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 electric locomotive (№ 4890), on display in the National Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.

I’ve spent much of the last two months embracing my inner child, which — given the sometimes bleak state of the world — I feel like more of us should invest in more than we do. For me, this meant rediscovering my love of trains.

Train & Locomotive History in America and Abroad

When I was born, my grandfather had just retired from a nearly thirty-year career as a train engineer for Conrail.¹ Grandad approached life and his work with a sense of light-heartedness and genuine love for what he did, which I try to carry with me to this day. Naturally, when he became my primary babysitter, this love of trains was then passed down to me. A love of trains that I once satisfied with toys and TV shows, I now satisfy with books!

Below is a selection of books exploring the history of American railroads (with a particular regional focus on Pennsylvania), as well as the history of railways abroad. I’ve sampled each of these books in small doses as I work on other projects. I’m also including an extra nonfiction piece that dissects the lore and real-world inspirations behind one of my favorite fictional universes of all time, one that happens to be centered around trains.²

• A Short History of the Railroad by Christian Wolmar

• The Train-Watcher’s Guide to North American Railroads compiled by George H. Drury

• Railroads of Pennsylvania: Second Edition by Lorrett Treese

• Back on Track: American Railroad Accidents and Safety, 1965–2015 by Mark Aldrich

• Railways: A Pictorial History of the First 150 Years by C. Hamilton Ellis

• The History of the Pennsylvania Railroad by Timothy Jacobs

• Sodor: Reading Between the Lines by Christopher Awdry

What I’m Rereading

Being an active reader is still a relatively new part of my life³, and one thing I don’t do nearly as much as I should is go back and reread books that I’ve loved in the past.

It’s important that we not only read books, but also reread them. We’re never the same person we were the last time we read a certain book. With each readthrough, we bring a new set of ideas and a perspective wholly different from the one we had before we ever opened that book’s pages.

These next two months, I will be rereading the following books. For some, I’ll reopen the same physical copies I read through years ago. Others, I will experience in new formats. Some books I read physically, I may listen to via audiobook. Some audiobooks I used to idly listen to, I’ll now go back and write notes in.

There’s no right or wrong way to reread a book. What’s important is simply that you do.

• Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t by Steven Pressfield

• Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be by Steven Pressfield

• Govt. Cheese by Steven Pressfield

• Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday

• The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

Remember: reach out to your inner child. What have you distanced yourself from that might make for a fun read? Let me know in the comments.

Until then, happy reading!

Notes:

1. Later to be merged into Norfolk Southern Railroad.

2. No, I’m not kidding. What the Rev. Wilbert Awdry and Christopher Awdry achieved with The Railway Series is truly an epic feat of worldbuilding that should be studied by writers of all genres.

3. My childhood aside.